Hidden Figures: Leah Chase (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Leah Chase

Rest in power, Leah Chase. Leah Lange Chase (January 6, 1923 – June 1, 2019) was an American chef based in New Orleans, Louisiana. An author and television personality, she was known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine, advocating both Black American art and Creole cooking. Her restaurant, Dooky Chase, was known as a gathering place during the 1960s among many who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and was known as a gallery due to its extensive Black American art collection. In 2018 it was named one of the 40 most important restaurants of the past 40 years by Food & Wine. In 1946, she married jazz trumpeter and band leader Edgar "Dooky" Chase II. His parents owned a street corner stand in Treme, founded in 1941, that sold lottery tickets and homemade po-boy sandwiches. Chase began working in the kitchen at the restaurant during the 1950s, and over time, Leah and Dooky took over the stand and converted it into a sit-down establishment, Dooky Chase's Restaurant. Dooky Chase became a staple in the black communities of New Orleans, and by the 1960s, became one of the only public places in New Orleans where Black Americans could meet and discuss strategies during the civil rights movement. Leah and her husband would host black voter registration campaign organizers, the NAACP, black political meetings and many other civil leaders at their restaurant, including local civil rights leaders A. P. Tureaud and Ernest "Dutch" Morial, and later Martin Luther King Jr. and the Freedom Riders. They would hold secret meetings and private strategy discussions in her upstairs meeting rooms. Chase studied art in high school, but because museums were segregated in the Jim Crow South, she was 54 the first time she visited an art museum. Chase began catering gallery openings for early-career artists during the Civil Rights period, and started collecting Black American art after her husband gave her a Jacob Lawrence painting. She soon began to display dozens of paintings and sculptures by Black American artists like Elizabeth Catlett and John T. Biggers, as well as hire local musicians to play in her bar. In addition to serving on the board of the New Orleans Museum of Art, she was on the boards of the Arts Council of New Orleans, the Louisiana Children’s Museum, the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation. In 2013, Chase and her husband founded the Edgar "Dooky" Jr. and Leah Chase Family Foundation. According to their official website, the foundation was founded to "cultivate and support historically disenfranchised organizations by making significant contributions to education, creative and culinary arts, and social justice." Leah Chase died on June 1, 2019 at the age of 96. #HiddenFigures #LeahChase ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: https://www.dookychaserestaurant.com About the Chef - Leah Chase: https://www.dookychaserestaurant.com/chef Leah Chase, a New Orleans culinary icon, dies at 96 (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpoKDKbVuNo The Last Word - Leah Chase: https://www.nytimes.com/video/obituaries/100000001635129/leah-chase-obituary.html 'Leah Chase, 96, Creole Chef Who Fed Presidents and Freedom Riders, Dies:' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/us/leah-chase-died.html 'The Food World Mourns Death of New Orleans Icon Leah Chase:' https://www.eater.com/2019/6/2/18649316/leah-chase-dead-reactions-twitter-instagram 'Leah Chase Told Me I Had No Choice But to Succeed:' https://www.bonappetit.com/story/leah-chase-no-choice-but-to-succeed 'The Culinary Legacy of Leah Chase:" https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/06/leah-chase-late-culinary-icon-new-orleans/590995/ 'Leah Chase, legendary queen of Creole cuisine, dies at 96:' https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/leah-chase-legendary-queen-creole-cuisine-dies-96-n1012861 'Leah Chase, 'a legend' whose restaurant Dooky Chase’s helped change New Orleans, dies at 96:' https://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/entertainment_life/food_restaurants/article_addcc488-7df7-11e8-a1c2-8b4aad319fdd.html 'Let’s remember Leah Chase as an indispensable civil rights figure:' https://www.nola.com/opinions/2019/06/lets-remember-leah-chase-as-an-indispensable-civil-rights-figure.html Leah Chase (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_Chase